Opinion in brief: How the soothsayers did

In the good old days when folks wanted to know what was gonna happen they consulted a soothsayer or haruspex. The former relied on hunches. The latter relied on bird entrails. Nowadays we seek out pollsters. They rely on hunches and bird entrails. Well, actually, they do “scientific” sampling.

Out of 11 ranked pollsters, one based in New Jersey comes out No. 1 in accuracy over the last three presidential elections. Another Garden State entrails examiner comes out No. 11. No. 1 is TechnoMetrica, in Ramsey, which teams up with Investor’s Business Daily on the IBD/TIPP survey. No. 11 is the famous Gallup of Princeton. Rasmussen, also a Jersey-based (Asbury Park) outfit, comes in No. 6 out of 11 for accuracy in the past three elections.

Tooting its own horn, Investor’s Business Daily recently ranked the polls by performance, showing its IBD/TIPP soothsaying operation to have an average error rate of 0.50 percent, very close to right on the money, over the last three elections. No. 6 Rasmussen had an error rate of 1.90 percent and last-place Gallup a 3.33.